1. Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an electric device, a power management apparatus and a method for controlling the same, which can balance power supply and power demand by informing a user of power consumption.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of Information Technology (IT), the number of household appliances powered by electricity is rapidly increasing, in turn leading to increasing power consumption. In order to satisfy such increased power demand, the number of power plants is rapidly increasing. However, as can be seen from a power demand pattern, peak capacity is not reached during most days of the year, that is to say, power plants only operate at full capacity during a few days out of the year.
A state in which a high power demand is required for a short time is called peak load. During periods of peak load, electricity costs the most to generate and deliver, and therefore power providers raise the power rate charged to consumers during periods of peak load. Construction costs for adding an additional power plant to the grid are extremely high and maintenance costs for power plants constructed to maintain peak load for a short period of time are considerable.
Recently, numerous developers have conducted research into a demand management method for temporarily restricting power consumption by limiting peak load without constructing such additional power plants. For the aforementioned purposes, demand management is a focus of attention, and a great deal of research is focused upon an advanced demand management format for demand response (DR).
DR is a system for intelligently managing energy consumption depending upon variation in power rates. For example, the consumer may temporarily stop an air-conditioner so as to reduce power consumption when power rates are high.
By means of the DR, a power-supply source can alter end user power consumption to achieve load balancing and can restrict end user power consumption to periods when demand is low, thereby reducing the user's overall energy expenditure.
Therefore, electric devices to which demand response (DR) is applied have been developed, and an energy management system (EMS) for controlling the driving of the electric device has been developed.
That is, if power rate information is sent to a user through the EMS, the user confirms the power rate information, and may directly turn on or off the electric device on the basis of the confirmed power rate information. Otherwise, the EMS analyzes power rate information and a power consumption restriction condition so that it may turn on or off each electric device or command each electric device to perform the most appropriate operation.
Accordingly, the user is unable to recognize not only a power consumption pattern of each electric device but also power consumption information for each operation of the electric device.
As a result, it is difficult to derive natural power consumption pattern variation of each electric device, and it is impossible for the user to recognize a method for reducing power consumption.